Darwin's Failed Predictions

www.judgingpbs.com

Note: This site is in no way affiliated with PBS or NOVA, and is intended as a critique of selected online materials from PBS-NOVA's "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial" documentary, which first aired in November, 2007. PBS-NOVA's original online materials are available at:http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/predictions.html.

Introduction.PBS asserts that the evidence "unequivocally supports [Darwin's] theory of evolution by natural selection." Do all scientists who approach biology with an open mind believe that the data "unequivocally" supports Darwin's view? The following slides show that scientists are increasingly skeptical that natural selection is the primary agent of evolutionary change. Moreover, key postulates of Darwin's theory - universal common descent, the continuity of life, and transitions in the fossil record - have come under intense scientific scrutiny from a diverse array of fields, including molecular biology, developmental biology, genetics, biochemistry, and paleontology. Some of Darwin's failed predictions include:

The failure of evolutionary biology to provide detailed evolutionary explanations for the origin of complex biochemical features;

The failure of the fossil record to provide support for Darwinian evolution;

The failure of molecular biology to provide evidence for universal common descent;

The failure of genetics and chemistry to explain the origin of the genetic code;

The failure of developmental biology to explain why vertebrate embryos diverge from the beginning of development.